


Dusk

by purple_azkaban



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25758502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_azkaban/pseuds/purple_azkaban
Summary: What if Edythe and Royal ended up together? What if Esme was the one to find Emmett and beg Carlisle to turn him? Hows Emmett gonna react to finding the third person whos blood appeals to him? In the middle of high school no less.*I do not own Twilight, Life and Death, or any of the characters! I am simply combining both and altering a few details to how I wish it was written! Enjoy!!*
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, Edythe Cullen/Royal Hale, Emmett Cullen/Beau Swan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if I missed any grammar problems!!!

January 17, 2018

My mom drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. Though it was January everywhere else, it was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, and the sky was bright blue. I had on my favorite t-shirt, the Monty Python one with the swallows and the coconut that mom got me two Christmases ago, It didn’t quite fit anymore, but that didn’t matter, I wouldn’t be needing t-shirts again soon.  
In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state, a small town named FDorlds exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this insignificant town more than anywhere in the U.S. It was from this town and its depressing gloom that my mom escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I was forced to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I started making ultimatums; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.  
Yet somehow, I found myself exiled to forks for the rest of my high school education. A year and a half. Eighteen months, hard time. When I slammed the car door behind me, it made a sound like the clang of iron bars. I have an overactive imagination, as my mom was fond of telling me. And, of course, this was my choice. Self-imposed exile.  
Didn’t make it any easier.  
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the dry heat and the big, sprawling city. And I loved living with my mom, where I was needed.  
“You don’t have to do this,” my mom said to me - the last of a hundred times - just before I got to the TSA post.  
My mom says that we look like I could use her for a shaving mirror. It’s not entirely true, though I don’t look much like my dad at all. Her chin pointy and her lips full, which is not like me, but we do have exactly the same eyes. On her, they’re childlike - so wide and pale blue - which makes her look more like my sister than my mom. We get that all the time and though she pretends not to, she loves it. On me, the pale blue is less youthful and more… unresolved.  
Staring at those wide, worried eyes, much like my own, I felt panicked. I’ve been taking care of my mom for my whole life. I mean, I’m sure there was a time, probably when I was in diapers, that I wasn’t in charge of the bills and paperwork and cooking and general level-headedness, but I couldn’t remember it.  
Was leaving mom to fend for herself the right thing to do? It seemed like it was, during the months that I’ve struggled with this decision. But it felt all kinds of wrong now.  
Of course, she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid on time, there would be food in the fridge, gas in the car and someone to call when she got lost… she didn’t need me anymore.  
“I want to go,” I lied. I’d never been a good liar, but I’ve said this one so much that it almost sounded convincing by now.  
“Tell Charlie I said hi.”  
“I will.”  
“I’ll see you soon,” she promised. “You call or text me whenever you want. I’ll answer, no matter what time it is.”  
“Don’t worry about me,” I insisted. “It’ll be great. I love you, Mom.”  
She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I walked through the metal detectors and she was gone.  
It’s a three-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying never bothered me; the hour in the car with Dad though, I was a little worried about.  
Dad had been really pretty decent about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him semi-permanently for the first time. He’d already gotten me registered for high school and was gonna help me get a car.  
But it would be awkward. Neither of us were what you’d call, extroverted, probably a necessary thing living with my mother. But aside from that, what was there to say? It wasn’t like I kept the way I felt about Forks a secret.  
When I landed in Port Angeles it was raining. It wasn’t an omen, just inevitable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.  
Dad was already waiting for me with the cruiser. This, I was expecting too. He is Police Chief Charlie Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite my serious lack of funds, was that I hated driving around town with a car that had blue and red lights on top. Nothing slows traffic down like a cop.  
I stumbled off the plane and into Das awkward, one arm hug.  
“It’s good to see you, Beau,” he said, smiling as he automatically steadied me. We patted each other’s shoulders, embarrassed, and stepped back.  
“You haven’t changed much, how’s Renee?”  
“Mom’s great, it's good to see you too Dad.” I give him a weak smile.  
“You really feel okay about leaving her?”  
We both understood that this question wasn’t about my own personal happiness. It was about if I was shirking my responsibilities to look after her. This was the reason Dad never fought Mom about custody, he knew she needed me.  
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sure.”  
“Fair enough.”  
I only had two big duffel bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for the Washington climate. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it still wasn’t much. I could handle both of them, but he insisted on taking one.  
It threw my balance off a little, not that I was ever really balanced, especially since the growth spurt. My foot caught in the lip of the exit door and the bag swung and hit the guy trying to get in.  
“Oh, sorry!”  
The guy wasn't that much older than me, and he was a lot shorter, but he stepped up to my chest with his chin raised high. I could see the tattoos on both sides of his neck. A small woman with hair dyed black stared menacingly at me from his other side.  
“Sorry?” she repeated like my apology had been offensive somehow.  
“Er, yeah?”  
And then the woman noticed Dad, who was in uniform. He didn't even have to say anything. He just looked at the guy, who backed up a half step and suddenly seemed a lot younger, and then the girl, whose sticky red lips settled into a pout. Without another word, they ducked around me and headed into the tiny terminal.  
Dad and I both shrugged at the same time. It was funny how we had some of the same mannerisms when we didn't spend much time together.  
Maybe it was genetic.  
“I found a good car for you, really cheap,” Dad announced when we were strapped into the cruiser and on our way.  
“What kind of car?” I asked, suspicious of the way he said “good car for you” as opposed to just “good car.”  
“Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy.”  
“Where did you find it?”  
“Do you remember Bonnie Black down at La Push?” La Push is the small Native American reservation on the nearby coastline.  
“No.”  
“She and her husband used to go fishing with us during the summer.” He Prompted.  
That would explain why I didn't remember her. I do a good job of blocking painful things from my memory.  
“She’s in a wheelchair now,” He continued when I did not respond, “so she can't drive anymore, and she offered to sell me her truck cheap.”  
“What year is it?” I could see from the change in his expression that this was the question he was hoping I didn't ask.  
“Well, Bonnie’s had a lot of work done to the engine, it's only a few years old really.”  
Did he think I would give up that easily?  
“When did she buy it?”  
“She bought it in 1984, I think.”  
“Did she buy it new?”  
“Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties, or late fifties at the earliest,” he admitted sheepishly.  
“Daad, I don't really know that much about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix anything that broke and I can't even afford a mechanic. . .”  
“Really Beau, the thing runs great. They don't make them like they used to anymore.”  
The thing, I thought to myself. . . it had possibilities, as a nickname at the very least.  
“How cheap is cheap?” After all, that part was the deal killer.  
“Well son, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.”  
He glanced sideways at me with a hopeful expression.  
Wow. Free.  
“You didn't need to do that Dad. I was going to buy myself a car.”  
“I don't mind. I want you to be happy here.” He was looking ahead at the road when he said this. Dad had never been comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. Another thing we had in common. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded.  
“That's amazing Dad. Thanks, I really appreciate it.” No need to add that he was talking about impossibilities. Wouldn't help for him to suffer along with me. And I never look a free truck in the mouth, or well, engine.  
“Well, now you're welcome.” He mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.  
We exchanged a few more comments about the weather, which was wet and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows.  
It was probably beautiful or something. Everything was so green: the trees were covered in moss, both the trunks and the branches, the ground blanketed with ferns. Even the air had turned green by the time it filtered down through the leaves.  
It was too green, an alien planet.  
Eventually, we made it to the house. He still lived in the small two-bedroom house that he'd bought together with Mom during the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had, the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new - well, new to me - truck. It was a faded red color with big, curvy edges and a rounded cab.  
And I loved it. I wasn't really a car guy, so I was kind of surprised by my own reaction.  
“Wow, Dad, it's awesome! Thanks!” Serious enthusiasm this time. Not only was the truck extremely cool but now I wouldn't have to walk in the rain to school in the mornings. Or, accept a ride in the cruiser. Which was obviously the worst-case scenario.  
“I'm glad you like it.” He said gruffly, embarrassed again.  
It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the faded blue-and-white checked curtains around the window—these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a second-hand computer. This was one of my mother’s requirements so that we could stay in touch in case my phone ever died. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.  
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share, but I’d had to share with my mom before, and that was definitely worse. She had a lot more stuff, and she doggedly resisted all my attempts to organize any of it.  
One of the best things about Dad is he doesn’t hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, which would have been totally impossible for my mom. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look comfortable; a relief to stare out the window at the sheeting rain and let my thoughts get dark.  
Forks High School had just three hundred and fifty-seven—now fifty-eight—students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together—their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new kid from the big city, something to stare at and whisper about.  
Maybe if I had been one of the cool kids, I could make this work for me. Come in all popular, homecoming king–styles. But there was no hiding the fact that I was not that guy—not the football star, not the class president, not the bad boy on the motorcycle. I was the kid who looked like he should be good at basketball until I started walking. The kid who got shoved into lockers for being gay until I’d suddenly shot up eight inches sophomore year. The kid who was too quiet and too pale, who didn’t know anything about gaming or cars or baseball statistics or anything else I was supposed to be into.  
Unlike the other kids, I didn’t have a ton of free time for hobbies. I had a checkbook to balance, a clogged drain to snake, and a week’s groceries to shop for.  
Or I used to.  
So I didn’t relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn’t relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closest to of anyone on the planet, never really understood me. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Like, maybe what I saw as green was what everyone else saw as red. Maybe I smelled vinegar when they smelled coconut. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.  
But the cause didn’t matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.  
I didn’t sleep well that night, even after I finally got my head to shut up. The constant whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn’t fade into the background. I pulled the old quilt over my head and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight when the rain finally settled into a quiet drizzle.  
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like that prison cage I’d imagined.  
Breakfast with Dad was quiet. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was a waste of time. Good luck tended to avoid me. He left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and stared at the familiar kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing had changed. My mom had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago, trying to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining, microscopic family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to this year’s. Those were embarrassing to look at—the bad haircuts, the braces years, the acne that had finally cleared up. I would have to see what I could do to get him to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here.  
It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that he had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.  
I didn’t want to be too early for school, but I couldn’t stay in the house anymore. I put on my jacket—thick, non-breathing plastic, like a biohazard suit—and headed out into the rain.  
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eave by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots sounded weird. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked.  
Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Bonnie or Dad had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, which was a relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The antique radio worked, a bonus I hadn’t expected.  
Finding the school wasn’t difficult; like most other things, it was just off the highway. It wasn’t obvious at first that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the Forks High School, clued me in. It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn’t see its size at first. Where was the feel of the institution? I thought. Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?  
I parked by the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading FRONT OFFICE. No one else was parked there, so I was sure it was off-limits, but I decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around in the rain like an idiot.  
Inside, it was brightly lit and warmer than I’d hoped. The office was small; there was a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, and a big clock ticking loudly. Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots as if there weren’t enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to the front. There were three desks behind the counter; a round, balding man in glasses sat at one. He was wearing a t-shirt, which immediately made me feel overdressed for the weather.  
The balding man looked up. “Can I help you?”  
“I’m Beau Swan,” I informed him, and saw the quick recognition in his eyes. I was expected, already the subject of gossip. The Chief’s son, the one with the unstable mom, come home at last.  
“Of course,” he said. He dug through a leaning stack of papers on his desk till he found the ones he was looking for. “I have your schedule right here, Beaufort, and a map of the school.” He brought several sheets to the counter to show me.  
“Um, it’s Beau, please.”  
“Oh, sure, Beau.”  
He went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign, which I was to bring back at the end of the day. He smiled at me and hoped, like Dad, that I would like it here in Forks. I smiled back as convincingly as I could.  
When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I drove around the school, following the line of traffic. Most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy. At home, I’d lived in one of the few lower-income neighborhoods that were included in the Paradise Valley District. It was a common thing to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student lot. The nicest car here was a brand-new silver Volvo, and it stood out. Still, I cut the engine as soon as I was in a spot, so that the ear-splitting volume wouldn’t draw attention to me.  
I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it now; hopefully, I wouldn’t have to walk around with it stuck in front of my nose all day. I stuffed everything in my backpack, slung the strap over my shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. It won’t be that bad, I lied to myself. Seriously, though, this wasn’t a life and death situation—it was just high school. It’s not like anyone was going to bite me. I finally exhaled, and stepped out of the truck.  
I pulled my hood down over my face as I walked to the sidewalk, crowded with teenagers. My plain black jacket didn’t stand out, I was glad to see, though there wasn’t much I could do about my height. I hunched my shoulders and kept my head down.  
Once I got around the cafeteria, building three was easy to spot. A large black “3” was painted on a white square on the east corner. I followed two unisex raincoats through the door.  
The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. They were two girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown hair. At least my skin wouldn’t be a standout here.  
I took the slip up to the teacher, a narrow woman with thinning hair whose desk had a nameplate identifying her as Ms. Mason. She gawked at me when she saw my name—discouraging—and I could feel the blood rush into my face, no doubt forming unattractive splotches across my cheeks and neck. At least she sent me to an empty desk at the back without introducing me to the class. I tried to fold myself into the little desk as inconspicuously as possible.  
It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but somehow, they managed. I kept my eyes down on the reading list the teacher had given me. It was pretty basic: Brontë, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I’d already read everything. That was comforting… and boring. I wondered if my mom would send me my folder of old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. I went through different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on.  
When the bell rang, a pale, skinny girl with skin problems and hair black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.  
“You’re Beaufort Swan, aren’t you?” She gave off the vibe of an overly helpful, chess club type.  
“Beau,” I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.  
“Where’s your next class?” she asked.  
I had to check in my bag. “Um, Government, with Jefferson, in building six.”  
There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.  
“I’m headed toward building four, I could show you the way.…” Definitely over-helpful. “I’m Erica,” she added.  
I forced a smile. “Thanks.”  
We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up. Several people seemed to be walking too close behind us—like they were trying to eavesdrop or something. I hoped I wasn’t getting paranoid.  
“So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?” she asked.  
“Very.”  
“It doesn’t rain much there, does it?”  
“Three or four times a year.”  
“Wow, what must that be like?” she wondered.  
“Sunny,” I told her.  
“You don’t look very tan.”  
“My mother is part albino.”  
She studied my face uneasily, and I stifled a groan. It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn’t mix. A few months of this and I’d forget how to use sarcasm.  
We walked back around the cafeteria, to the south buildings by the gym. Erica followed me right to the door, though it was clearly marked.  
“Well, good luck,” she said as I touched the handle. “Maybe we’ll have some other classes together.” She sounded hopeful.  
I smiled at her—in what I hoped was not an encouraging way—and went inside.  
The rest of the morning passed in about the same way. My Trigonometry teacher, Ms. Varner, who I would have disliked anyway just because of the subject she taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I stammered, went splotchy red, and tripped over my own boots on the way to my seat.  
After two classes, I started to recognize some of the faces in each room. There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking Forks. I tried to be diplomatic, but mostly I just lied a lot. At least I never needed the map.  
In every class, the teacher started out calling me Beaufort, and though I corrected them immediately, it was depressing. It had taken me years to live down Beaufort—thank you so much, Grandpa, for dying just months before I was born and making my mom feel obligated to honor you. No one at home even remembered that Beau was just a nickname anymore. Now I had to start all over again.  
One guy sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish, and he walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. He was short, not even up to my shoulder, but his crazy curly hair made up some of the difference between our heights. I couldn’t remember his name, so I smiled and nodded as he rattled on about teachers and classes. I didn’t try to keep up.  
We sat at the end of a full table with several of his friends, who he introduced to me—couldn’t complain about the manners here. I forgot all their names as soon as he said them. They seemed to think it was cool that he’d invited me. The girl from English, Erica, waved at me from across the room, and they all laughed. Already the butt of the joke. It was probably a new record for me. But none of them seemed mean-spirited about it.  
It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.  
They were seated in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren’t talking, and they weren’t eating, though they each had a tray of food in front of them. They weren’t gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them. But it was none of these things that caught my attention.  
They didn’t look anything alike.  
There were three guys; one was big - muscled like a serious weight lifter. Add in the dark, short, curly brown hair and his height being about 6’3 he reminded me of a grizzly! But his smile made him look more mischievous and childlike.  
Another had hair the color of honey hanging to his shoulders; he was not quite so tall as the brunette but still probably taller than most of the other guys at my table. There was something intense about him, edgy. It was kind of weird, but for some reason he made me think of this actor I’d seen in an action movie a few weeks ago, who took down a dozen guys with a machete. I remembered thinking then that I didn’t buy it—there was no way the actor could have taken on that many bad guys and won. But I thought now that I might have bought it all if the character had been played by this guy.  
The last one who was definitely taller than me, I’d guess six-five or even more—was clearly the school’s star athlete. And the prom king. And the guy who always had dibs on whatever equipment he wanted in the weight room. His straight gold hair was wound into a bun on the back of his head, but there was nothing feminine about it—somehow it made him look even more like a man. He was clearly too cool for this school, or any other I could imagine.  
The two girls were kind of similar. The shorter girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.  
The other one was slightly taller, with hair somewhere between red and brown, but different than either, kind of metallic somehow, a bronze color. Both looked a lot younger than the guys, who could have been in college, easily.  
Totally different, and yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino. They all had very dark eyes—from here they looked black—despite the range in their hair colors. There were deep shadows under all their eyes—purple shadows, like bruises. Maybe the five of them had just pulled an all-nighter. Or maybe they were recovering from broken noses. Except that their noses, all their features, were straight, angular.  
But that wasn’t why I couldn’t look away.  
I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all insanely, inhumanly beautiful. The girls and the guys both—beautiful. They were faces you never saw in real life—just airbrushed in magazines and on billboards. Or in a museum, painted by an old master as the face of an angel. It was hard to believe they were real.

I decided the most beautiful of all was the first guy with the deep brown curls, though I expected half of the student body would vote for the movie-star blond guy. They would be wrong, though. I mean, all of them were gorgeous, but this guy was something more than just beautiful. He was absolutely perfect. It was an upsetting, disturbing kind of perfection. It made my stomach uneasy.  
They were all looking away; away from each other, away from the rest of the students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. It reminded me of models posed oh so artistically for an ad—aesthetic ennui. As I watched, the smaller girl rose with her tray -unopened soda, unbitten apple - and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancer's step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who hadn’t changed.  
“Who are they?” I asked the guy from my Spanish class, whose name I’d forgotten.  
As he looked up to see who I meant—though he could probably guess from my tone—suddenly one of them looked at us, the bronze haired girl.. She looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then her dark eyes flickered to mine. Long eyes, angled up at the corners, thick lashes.  
She looked away quickly, faster than I could, though I dropped my stare as soon as she’d glanced our way. I could feel the patches of red start to bloom in my face. In that brief flash of a glance, her face wasn’t interested at all—it was like he had called her name, and she’d looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.  
My neighbor laughed once, uncomfortable, looking down at the table like I did.  
He muttered his answer under his breath. “Those are the Cullens and the Hales. Edith and Emmett Cullen, Jasper and Royal Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen. They live with Dr. Cullen and his wife.”  
I glanced sideways at them, eyes lingering on the bear of a man, before resting on the girl. She was looking at her tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with thin, pale fingers. Her mouth was moving very quickly, her full lips barely opening. The blondes looked away but the brunette looked right at me, arms folded on the table with a smirk adorning his lips.  
I can't help but turn my head to stare back at my table. Weird names. Old-fashioned. The kinds of names grandparents had—like my name. Maybe that was the thing here? Small-town names? And then I finally remembered that my neighbor was named Jeremy. A totally normal name. There were two kids named Jeremy in my history class back home.  
“They’re all very… good-looking.” What an understatement.  
“Yeah!” Jeremy agreed with another laugh. “They’re all together, though—Royal and Edithe, Alice and Jasper. Like dating, you know? And they live together.” He snickered and wagged his eyebrows suggestively.  
I didn’t know why, but his reaction made me want to defend them. Maybe just because he sounded so judgmental. But what could I say? I didn’t know anything about them.  
“Which ones are the Cullens?” I asked, wanting to change the tone but not the subject. “They don’t look related… well, I mean, sort of…”  
“Oh, they’re not. Dr. Cullen is really young. Early thirties. The Cullen kids are all adopted. The Hales—the blondes—are brothers, twins, I think, and they’re some kind of foster kids.”  
“They look old for foster kids.”  
“They are now. Royal and Jasper are both eighteen, but they’ve been with Mrs. Cullen since they were little. She’s their aunt, I think.”  
“That’s actually kind of amazing—for them to take care of all those kids, when they’re so young and everything.”  
“I guess so,” Jeremy said, though it sounded like he’d rather not say anything positive. As if he didn’t like the doctor and his wife for some reason… and the way he was looking at their adopted kids, I could guess there might be some jealousy involved. “I think Mrs. Cullen can’t have any kids, though,” he added, as if that somehow made what they were doing less admirable.  
Through all this conversation, I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the strange family for more than a few seconds at a time. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.  
“Have they always lived in Forks?” I asked. How could I never have noticed them during my summers here?  
“No. They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska.”  
I felt a strange wave of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were still outsiders, not accepted. Relief that I wasn’t the only newcomer here, and definitely not the most interesting by any standard.  
As I examined them again, the girl, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, before turning to the one that was still smirking at me. As I immediately looked away, I thought that his look held some kind of knowing joke.  
“Which one is the guy with the brown hair?” I asked. I tried to glance casually in that direction, like I was just checking out the cafeteria; he was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other kids had today—he had this amused expression I didn’t understand. I looked down again.  
“That’s Emmett. He’s all muscle no brain, don’t waste your time. He doesn’t go out with anyone. Apparently no one here is good enough for him,” Jeremy said sourly, then grunted. I wondered how many times they’d turned him down.  
I pressed my lips together to hide a smile. Then I glanced at him again. Emmett. His face was turned away, but I thought from the shape of his cheek that he might be frowning.  
After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were seriously graceful—even the golden prom king. It was a strange thing to watch them in motion together. Emmett didn’t look at me again.  
I sat at the table with Jeremy and his friends longer than I would have if I’d been sitting alone. I didn’t want to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who politely reminded me that his name was Allen, had Biology II with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. He was probably shy like me.  
When we entered the classroom, Allen went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to at home. He already had a neighbor. In fact, all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Emmett Cullen by his unusual knowing smirk, sitting next to that single open seat.  
My heart started pounding a little faster than usual.  
As I walked down the aisle to do my required intro for the teacher and get my slip signed, I was watching him, trying to make it covert. Just as I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. His face jerked up toward mine so fast it surprised me, staring with the strangest expression—it was more than angry, it was furious, hostile. I looked away, stunned, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.  
I’d been right about the eyes. They were black—coal black.  
Mrs. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no-nonsense about introductions and no mention of my full name. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, she had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him, confused and awkward, wondering what I could have done to earn the antagonistic glare he’d given me.  
I didn’t look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I saw his posture change from the corner of my eye. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he smelled something bad. Inconspicuously, I sniffed. My shirt smells like laundry detergent. How could that be offensive? I scooted my chair to the right, giving him as much space as I could, and tried to pay attention to the teacher.  
The lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I’d already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, always looking down.  
I couldn’t stop myself from shooting the occasional glance at the strange boy next to me. Throughout the entire class, he never relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible, with his face turned away. His hand was clenched into a fist on top of his left thigh, tendons standing out under his pale skin. This, too, he never relaxed. He had the sleeves of his white henley pushed up to his elbows, and his forearm flexed with huge hard muscle beneath his pale skin. I couldn’t help but notice how perfect that skin was. Not one freckle, not one scar.  
The class seemed to drag on longer than the rest. Was it because the day was finally ending, or because I was waiting for his tight fist to loosen? It never did; he continued to sit so still it looked like he wasn’t even breathing. What was wrong with him? Was this how he usually acted? I questioned my quick judgment on Jeremy’s sour grapes at lunch today. Maybe he wasn’t just resentful.  
This couldn’t have anything to do with me. He didn’t know me from Adam.  
Mrs. Banner passed some quizzes back when the class was almost done. She handed me one to give to the guy. I glanced at the top automatically—one hundred percent.  
I glanced up at him as I slid the paper over, and then instantly regretted it. He was glaring down at me again, his dark, black eyes full of revulsion. As I flinched away from the hate radiating from him, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind.  
At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Emmett Cullen was out of his seat. He moved like a dancer, every perfect line of his bulk in harmony with all the others, his back to me, and he was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.  
I sat frozen in my seat, staring blankly after him. He was so harsh. I began gathering up my things slowly, trying to block out the confusion and guilt that filled me. Why should I feel guilty? I hadn’t done anything wrong. How could I have? I hadn’t actually even met him.  
“Aren’t you Beaufort Swan?” a female voice asked.  
I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced girl, her hair carefully flat-ironed into a pale blond curtain, smiling at me in a friendly way. She obviously didn’t think I smelled bad.  
“Beau,” I corrected her, smiling back.  
“I’m McKayla.”  
“Hi, McKayla.”  
“Do you need any help finding your next class?”  
“I’m headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it.”  
“That’s my next class, too.” She seemed thrilled, though it wasn’t such a big coincidence in a school this small.  
We walked to class together; she was a chatterer—she supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. She’d lived in California till she was ten, so she got how I felt about the sun. It turned out she’d been in my English class also. She was the nicest person I’d met today.  
But as we were entering the gym she asked, “So, did you stab Emmett Cullen with a pencil or what? I’ve never seen him act like that.”  
I winced. I guess I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. And, apparently, that wasn’t Emmett Cullen’s usual behavior. I decided to play dumb.  
“Was that the guy I sat next to in Biology?”  
“Yeah,” she said. “He looked like he was in pain or something.”  
“I don’t know,” I responded. “I never spoke to him.”  
“He’s weird.” McKayla lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing room. “If I got to sit by you, I would have talked to you.”  
I smiled at her before walking through the boys’ locker room door. She was kind and seemed to like me. But that wasn’t enough to make me forget the last strange hour.  
The Gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform, but she didn’t make me dress down for today’s class. At home, only two years of P.E. were required. Here P.E. was mandatory all four years. My own special version of hell.  
I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously. Remembering how many injuries I had sustained—and inflicted—playing volleyball, I felt a little nauseated.  
The final bell rang at last. I walked slowly to the office to return my paperwork. The rain had faded away, but the wind was strong and colder. I zipped my jacket up and shoved my free hand into a pocket.  
When I walked into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out.  
Emmett Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. Impossible not to recognize his brown curls. He didn’t seem to notice the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the back wall, waiting for the balding receptionist to be free.  
Emmett was arguing with him in a deep, velvety voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time—any other time.  
This could not be about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I got to the Biology room. The look on his face must have been about some other problem. It was impossible that a stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me. I wasn’t interesting enough to be worth that strong of a reaction.  
The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, waving through my hair. The girl who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Emmett Cullen’s back stiffened, and he turned slowly to glare at me—his face was ridiculously perfect, not even one tiny flaw to make him seem human—with piercing, hate-filled eyes. For an instant, I felt the oddest thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. As if he were going to pull a gun out and shoot me. The look only lasted a second, but it was colder than the freezing wind. He turned back to the receptionist.  
“Never mind, then,” he said quickly in his deep voice. “I can see that it’s impossible. Thank you so much for your help.” And he turned on his heel without another look at me and disappeared out the door.  
I went robotically to the desk, my face white for once instead of red, and handed him the signed slip.  
“How did your first day go, son?” he asked.  
“Fine,” I lied, my voice cracking. I could see I hadn’t convinced him.  
When I got to the truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to home I had in this wet, green hell. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to want the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life. I headed back to Charlie’s house, trying to think of nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the late update!!!!

THE NEXT DAY WAS BETTER… AND WORSE.  
It was better because it wasn’t raining yet, though the clouds were dense and black. It was easier because I knew better what to expect of the day. McKayla came to sit by me in English, and walked with me to my next class, with Chess Club Erica glaring at her all the way there; that was kind of flattering. People didn’t stare at me quite as much as they had yesterday. I sat with a big group at lunch that included McKayla, Erica, Jeremy, Allen, and several other people whose names and faces I now remembered. I began to feel like I might be treading water, instead of drowning in it.  
It was worse because I was tired; I still couldn’t sleep with the rain beating on the house. It was worse because Ms. Varner called on me in Trig when my hand wasn’t raised and I had the wrong answer. It was miserable because I had to play volleyball, and the one time I didn’t dodge out of the way of the ball, I hit two of my teammates in the head with one bad volley. And it was worse because Emmett Cullen wasn’t in school at all.  
All morning I was trying not to think about lunch, not wanting to remember those hate-filled stares. Part of me wanted to confront him and demand to know what his problem was. While I was lying awake in bed, I even imagined what I would say. But I knew myself too well to think I would really have the guts to do it. Maybe if he hadn’t been so abnormally handsome.  
But when I walked into the cafeteria with Jeremy—trying to keep my eyes from sweeping the place for him and totally failing—I saw that his four adopted siblings were sitting together at the same table as before, and he was not with them.  
McKayla intercepted us and steered us to her table. Jeremy seemed thrilled by the attention, and his friends quickly joined us. I tried to tune into the conversations around me, but I was still uncomfortable, waiting for Emmett’s arrival. I hoped that he would simply ignore me when he came, and prove that I was making a big deal out of nothing.  
He didn’t come, and I got more and more tense.  
I walked to Biology with more confidence when, by the end of lunch, he still hadn’t shown. McKayla, who was starting to seem weirdly, I don’t know, territorial about me, walked by my side to class. I hesitated for a second at the door, but Emmett Cullen wasn’t here, either. I exhaled and went to my seat. McKayla followed, talking about an upcoming trip to the beach. She lingered by my desk till the bell rang, then she smiled at me wistfully and went to sit by a boy with braces and something close to a bowl cut.

I didn’t want to be arrogant, but I was pretty sure she was into me, which was a strange feeling. Girls hadn’t noticed me much at home. I wondered if I wanted her to like me. She was sort of pretty and everything, but her attention made me feel a little uncomfortable. I really hoped it wasn’t because of the time I’d spent staring at Emmett Cullen yesterday, but I was kind of afraid that was it. Which was about the stupidest thing possible, really. If I based my reaction to a guy’s looks off a face and body like Emmett’s, I was doomed. That was fantasy, not reality.  
I was glad that I had the desk to myself, that Emmett wasn’t here. I told myself that again and again. Still, I couldn’t get rid of this annoying feeling that I was the reason he was gone. It was ridiculous, and egotistical again, to think that I could affect anyone that much. It was impossible. But I couldn’t stop worrying about it.  
When the school day was finally done, and the patches of red were fading out of my face from the latest volleyball incident, I changed quickly back into my jeans and heavy sweater. I rushed from the locker room, glad to find that I had successfully evaded McKayla for the moment. I hurried out to the parking lot. It was crowded now with fleeing students. I got in my truck and dug through my backpack to make sure I still had what I needed.  
It was no secret that Charlie couldn’t cook much besides fried eggs and bacon. Last night, I’d requested that I be assigned kitchen detail for the duration of my stay. He was willing enough to let me take over. A quick search revealed that he had no food in the house. So I had my grocery list and the cash from the jar in the cupboard labeled FOOD MONEY, and I was headed to the Thriftway.  
I gunned the thunderous engine to life, ignoring the heads that turned in my direction, and backed into a place in the line of cars that were waiting to exit the parking lot. As I waited, trying to pretend that the earsplitting rumble was coming from someone else’s car, I saw the two Cullens and the Hale twins walking up to their car. It was the shiny new Volvo. Of course. I hadn’t noticed their clothes before—I’d been too mesmerized by their faces. Now that I looked, it was obvious that they were all wearing stuff that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Attractive as they all were, they could have worn garbage sacks and started a trend. It seemed like too much for them to have both looks and money. Though, as far as I could tell, life worked that way most of the time. It didn’t look like it bought them any popularity here.  
But I couldn’t really believe that. The isolation had to be something they chose; I couldn’t imagine any door their beauty wouldn’t open for them.  
They looked at my noisy truck as I passed them, just like everyone else. Except they weren’t anything like anyone else. I saw that the big blond guy—Royal, it must be. Figured. Anyway, Royal had his hand casually on the hip of the girl with the metallic auburn hair. He had to be a good two inches taller than even I was, but she only came up to his shoulder. He caught me looking, and the way his eyes narrowed made me turn straight ahead and punch the gas. The truck didn’t go any faster, the engine just grumbled even louder.  
The Thriftway was not far from the school, a few streets south, off the highway. It was nice to be inside the supermarket; it felt normal. I did most of the shopping at home, and I fell easily into the pattern of the familiar job. The store was big enough inside that I couldn’t hear the tapping of the rain on the roof to remind me where I was.  
When I got home, I unloaded all the groceries, reorganizing the cupboards till everything was in a place that made sense. Charlie’s system was kind of haphazard. I hoped Charlie wouldn’t mind, that he wasn’t OCD about his kitchen the way I was. Once I was satisfied with the organization, I worked on the prep for dinner.  
I realized, as I was sticking the marinade-covered steak into the fridge, that I hadn’t let her know I’d made it yesterday. She was probably freaking out.  
I ran up the stairs two at a time realizing i left my cell on my nightstand this morning. It took a minute to turn on after plugging it in. Once it was though, three messages showed up on the screen. The first was from yesterday.  
“Beau,” my mom texted.  
“Text me as soon as you get in. Tell me how your flight was. Is it raining? I miss you already. I’m almost finished packing for Florida, but I can’t find my pink blouse. Do you know where I put it? Phil says hi. Mom.”  
I sighed, and went to the next. It was sent six hours after the first.  
“Beau,  
Why haven’t you texted me yet? What are you waiting for? Mom.”  
The last was from this morning.  
“Beaufort Swan,  
If I haven’t heard from you by 5:30 p.m. today I’m calling Charlie.”  
I checked the clock. I still had an hour, but Mom was known for jumping the gun.  
“Mom,  
Calm down. I’m texting right now. Don’t do anything crazy.  
Beau.”  
I sent that, and then started the next, beginning with a lie.  
“Everything is great. Of course it’s raining. I was waiting for something to message you about. School isn’t bad, just a little repetitive. I met some okay kids who sat with me at lunch.  
Your shirt is at the dry cleaners—you were supposed to pick it up Friday.  
Charlie bought me a truck, can you believe it? It’s awesome. It’s old, but really sturdy, which is good, you know, for me.  
I miss you, too. I’ll text again soon, but I’m not going to check my phone every five minutes. Relax, breathe. I love you.  
Beau.”  
I heard the front door bang open, and I hurried downstairs to take the potatoes out and put the steak in to broil.  
“Beau?” my father called out when he heard me on the stairs.  
Who else? I thought to myself.  
“Hey, Dad, welcome home.”  
“Thanks.” He hung up his gun belt and stepped out of his boots as I moved around the kitchen. As far as I was aware, he’d never shot the gun on the job. But he kept it ready. When I’d come here as a child, he would always remove the bullets as soon as he walked in the door. I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose.  
“What’s for dinner?” he asked warily. Mom was an imaginative cook, when she bothered, and her experiments weren’t always edible. I was surprised, and sad, that he seemed to remember that far back.  
“Steak and potatoes,” I answered. Dad looked relieved.  
He obviously felt awkward standing in the kitchen doing nothing; he lumbered into the living room to watch TV while I worked. I think we were both more comfortable that way. I made a salad while the steak cooked, and set the table.  
I called him in when dinner was ready, and he sniffed appreciatively as he walked into the room.  
“Smells good, Beau.”  
“Thanks.”  
We ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t awkward. Both of us like quiet. In some ways, we were good roommates.  
“So, how did you like school? Make any friends?” he asked as he was taking seconds.  
“Well, I have a few classes with this guy named Jeremy. I sit with his friends at lunch. And there’s this girl, McKayla, who’s friendly. Everybody seems pretty nice.” With one outstanding exception.  
“That must be McKayla Newton. Nice girl—nice family. Her dad owns the sporting goods store just outside of town. He makes a good living off all the backpackers who come through here.”  
We ate in silence for a minute.  
“Do you know the Cullen family?” I asked, trying to sound casual.  
“Dr. Cullen’s family? Sure. She’s a great woman.”  
“They—the kids—are a little… different. They don’t seem to fit in very well at school.”  
I was surprised to see his face get red, the way it does when he’s angry.  
“People in this town,” he muttered. “Dr. Cullen is a brilliant surgeon who could probably work in any hospital in the world, making ten times the salary she gets here,” he continued, getting louder. “We’re lucky to have her—lucky that her husband wanted to live in a small town. She’s an asset to the community, and all of those kids are well behaved and polite. I had my doubts, when they first moved in, with all those adopted teenagers. I thought we might have some problems with them. But they’re all very mature—I haven’t had one speck of trouble from any of them. That’s more than I can say for the children of some folks who have lived in this town for generations. And they stick together the way a family should—camping trips every other weekend.… Just because they’re newcomers, people have to talk.”  
It was the longest speech I’d ever heard him make. He must feel strongly about whatever people were saying.  
I backpedaled. “They seemed nice enough to me. I just noticed they kept to themselves. They’re all very attractive,” I added, trying to be more complimentary.  
“You should see the doctor,” Charlie said, laughing. “It’s a good thing she’s happily married. A lot of the hospital staff have a hard time concentrating on their work with her around.”  
We lapsed back into silence as we finished eating. He cleared the table while I started on the dishes. He went back to the TV, and after I finished washing the dishes by hand—no dishwasher—I went upstairs to work on my math homework. I could feel a tradition in the making.  
That night it was finally quiet. I fell asleep fast, exhausted.  
The rest of the week was uneventful. I got used to the routine of my classes. By Friday I was able to recognize, if not name, almost all the kids at school. In Gym, the people on my team learned not to send the ball my direction. I stayed out of their way.  
Emmett Cullen didn’t come back to school.  
Every day, I watched, pretending I wasn’t looking, until the rest of the Cullens entered the cafeteria without him. Then I could relax and join in the conversation. Mostly it centered around a trip to the La Push Ocean Park in two weeks that McKayla was putting together. I was invited, and I agreed to go, more out of politeness than a strong urge to hit the beach. I believed beaches should be hot, and—aside from the ocean—dry.  
By Friday I was totally comfortable entering my Biology class, no longer worried that Emmett would show. For all I knew, he’d dropped out of school. I tried not to think about him, but I couldn’t totally erase the worry that I was responsible for his continued absence, ridiculous as it seemed.  
My first weekend in Forks continued without incident. Charlie worked most of the time. I wrote my mom more fake cheerful texts, got ahead on my homework, and cleaned up the house—obviously OCD wasn’t a problem for Dad. I drove to the library Saturday, but I didn’t even bother to get a card—there wasn’t anything interesting I hadn’t read; I would have to visit Olympia or Seattle soon, and find a good bookstore. I wondered idly what kind of gas mileage the truck got… and winced at the thought.  
The rain stayed soft over the weekend, quiet, so I was able to sleep.  
People greeted me in the parking lot Monday morning. I didn’t know all their names, but I smiled at everyone. It was colder this morning, but at least it wasn’t raining. In English, McKayla took her now-normal seat by my side. We had a pop quiz on Wuthering Heights. It was straightforward, very easy.  
All in all, I was feeling a lot more comfortable than I had thought I would feel by this point. More comfortable than I had ever expected to feel here.  
When we walked out of class, the air was full of swirling bits of white. I could hear people shouting excitedly to each other. The wind was freezing against my cheeks, my nose.  
“Wow,” McKayla said. “It’s snowing.”  
I looked at the little cotton fluffs that were building up along the sidewalk and swirling erratically past my face.  
“Ugh.” Snow. There went my good day.  
She looked surprised. “Don’t you like snow?”  
“Snow means it’s too cold for rain.” Obviously. “Besides, I thought it was supposed to come down in flakes—you know, each one unique and all that. These just look like the ends of Q-tips.”  
“Haven’t you ever seen snow fall before?” she asked incredulously.  
“Sure I have.” I paused. “On TV.”  
McKayla laughed. And then a big, wet ball of dripping snow smacked into the back of her head. We both turned to see where it came from. I suspected Erica, who was walking away, her back toward us—in the wrong direction for her next class. McKayla had the same idea. She bent over and began scraping together a pile of white mush.  
“I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” I kept walking as I spoke. The last thing I wanted was a wad of dirty ice melting down my neck the rest of the day.  
She just nodded, her eyes on Erica’s back.  
I kept a sharp lookout on the way to the cafeteria with Jeremy after Spanish. Mush balls were flying everywhere. I had a binder in my hands, ready to use it as a shield. Jeremy thought I was hilarious, but something in my expression kept him from lobbing a snowball at me himself.  
McKayla caught up to us as we walked in the doors, laughing, her usually sleek hair turning frizzy from the wet. She and Jeremy were talking animatedly about the snow fight as we got in line to buy food. I glanced toward that table in the corner out of habit. And then I froze where I stood. There were five people at the table.  
Jeremy pulled on my arm.  
“Hey? Beau? What do you want?”  
I looked down; my ears were hot. I had no reason to feel self-conscious, I reminded myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong.  
“What’s with Beau?” McKayla asked Jeremy.  
“Nothing,” I answered. I grabbed a soda bottle as I caught up to the end of the line.  
“Aren’t you hungry?” Jeremy asked.  
“Actually, I feel a little sick,” I said.  
He shuffled a few steps away from me.  
I waited for them to get their food, and then followed them to the table, my eyes anywhere but the back corner of the cafeteria.  
I drank my soda slowly, stomach churning. Twice McKayla asked, with a concerned tone that seemed a little over the top, how I was feeling. I told her it was nothing, but I was wondering if I should play it up and escape to the nurse’s office for the next hour.  
Ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to run away. Why was I being such a coward? Was it so bad to be glared at? It wasn’t like he was actually going to stab a knife in me.  
I decided to allow myself one glance at the Cullen family’s table. Just to read the mood.  
I kept my head turned away and glanced out of the side of my eye. None of them were looking this way. I turned my head a little.  
They were laughing. Edythe, Alice, and Emmett all had their hair entirely saturated with melting snow. Jasper and Royal were leaning away as Edythe flipped her dripping hair toward them, leaving a wide arc of splatters across the front of their jackets. They were enjoying the snowy day, just like everyone else—only they looked more like a scene from a movie than the rest of us.  
But, aside from the laughter and playfulness, there was something different, and I couldn’t quite figure out what that difference was. I examined Emmett, comparing him to my memory of last week. His skin was less pale, I decided—flushed from the snow fight maybe—the circles under his eyes much less noticeable. But there was something else. I forgot to pretend I wasn’t staring as I tried to put my finger on the change.  
“What are you staring at, Beau?” Jeremy asked.  
At that precise moment, Emmett’s eyes flashed over to meet mine.  
I turned my head completely toward Jeremy, shifting my shoulders in his direction, too. Jeremy leaned away, surprised by my sudden invasion of his personal space.  
I was sure, though, in the instant our eyes had met, that he didn’t look angry or disgusted as he had the last time I’d seen him. He just looked curious.  
“Emmett Cullen is staring at you,” Jeremy said, looking over my shoulder.  
“He doesn’t look angry, does he?” I couldn’t help asking.  
“No.” Jeremy looked confused, then he suddenly smiled. “What did you do, ask him out?”  
“No! I’ve never even talked to him. I just… don’t think he likes me very much,” I admitted. I kept my body angled toward Jeremy, but the back of my neck had goose bumps, like I could feel his eyes on me.  
“The Cullens don’t like anybody… well, they don’t notice anybody enough to like them. But he’s still staring at you.”  
“Stop looking at him,” I insisted.  
He snickered, but finally looked away.  
McKayla interrupted us then—she was planning an epic battle of the blizzard in the parking lot after school and wanted us to join. Jeremy agreed enthusiastically. The way he looked at McKayla left little doubt that he would be up for anything she suggested. I kept silent. I wondered how many years I would have to live in Forks before I was bored enough to find frozen water exciting. Probably much longer than I planned to be here.  
For the rest of the lunch hour I very carefully kept my eyes at my own table. Emmett didn’t look like he was planning to murder me anymore, so it was no big thing to go to Biology. My stomach twisted at the thought of sitting next to him again.  
I didn’t really want to walk to class with McKayla as usual—she seemed to be a popular target for snowballs—but when we got to the door, everyone besides me groaned in unison. It was raining, washing all traces of the snow away in clear, icy ribbons down the side of the walkway. I pulled my hood up, hiding my smile. I would be free to go straight home after Gym.  
McKayla kept up a string of complaints on the way to building four.  
Once inside the classroom, I was relieved that Emmett’s chair was still empty. It gave me a minute to settle myself. Mrs. Banner was walking around the room, distributing one microscope and box of slides to each table. Class still had a few minutes before it started, and the room buzzed with conversation. I kept my eyes away from the door, doodling idly on the cover of my notebook.  
I heard very clearly when the chair next to me moved, but I kept my eyes focused on the pattern I was drawing.  
“Hey,” said a deep, musical voice.  
I looked up, shocked that he was speaking to me. He was sitting as far away from me as the desk allowed, but his chair was angled toward me. His hair was dripping wet, drops trailing down his forehead, he looked like he’d just finished shooting a commercial. His perfect face was friendly, open, a slight smirk on his full, pink lips. But his long eyes were careful.  
“I’m Emmett Cullen,” he continued. “I didn’t have a chance to say hi last week. You must be Beau Swan.”  
My mind was whirling with confusion. Had I made up the whole thing? He was totally polite now. I had to say something; he was waiting. But I couldn’t think of anything normal to say.  
“H-how do you know my name?” I stammered.  
He laughed softly. “Oh come on, everyone knows your name. The whole town’s been waiting for you to arrive.”  
I frowned, though it wasn’t as if I hadn’t guessed as much.  
“No,” I persisted like an idiot. “I meant, why did you call me Beau?”  
He seemed confused but had that same smirk on his face. “Do you really wanna be called Beaufort?”  
“Absolutely not,” I said. “But I think my dad must call me that behind my back—that’s what everyone here seemed to know me as.” The more I tried to explain, the more moronic it sounded.  
“Oh.” He let it drop. I looked away awkwardly.  
Luckily, Mrs. Banner started class at that moment. I tried to concentrate as she explained the lab we would be doing today. The slides in the box were out of order. Working as lab partners, we had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the phases of mitosis they represented and label them accordingly. We weren’t supposed to use our books. In twenty minutes, she would be coming around to see who had it right.  
“Get started,” she commanded.  
“I’m nothing if not a gentleman, so, you first.” Emmett said. I looked up to see him smiling a dimpled smile so perfect that I could only stare at him like a fool.  
He raised his eyebrows.  
“Uh, sure, yeah,” I sputtered.  
I saw his eyes flash to the splotches blooming across my cheeks. Why couldn’t my blood just stay in my veins where it belonged?  
He looked away sharply, He pushed the microscope to my side of the table.  
I studied the first slide for about thirty seconds—maybe less.  
“Prophase.”  
I switched out the slide for the next, then paused and looked up at him.  
“Or did you want to check?” I asked.  
“Nah, I trust ya.” He said.  
He wrote the word Prophase neatly on the top line of our worksheet. Even his handwriting was perfect, like he’d taken classes in penmanship or something. Did anyone still do that?  
He barely glanced through the microscope at the second slide after i passed it to him, then wrote Anaphase on the next line.  
He moved the next slide into place, while I took advantage of his diverted attention to stare. So close up, you’d think I’d be able to see something—a hint of a pimple, a stray eyebrow hair, a pore, something—wrong with him. But there was nothing.  
Suddenly his head flipped up, eyes to the front of the class, right as Mrs. Banner called out, “Mr. Cullen?”  
“Yes, Mrs. Banner?” Emmett slid the microscope toward me as he spoke.  
“Perhaps you should let Mr. Swan have an opportunity to learn?”  
“Of course, Mrs. Banner.”  
Emmett turned and gave me a well, go ahead then look.  
I bent down to look through the eyepiece. I could sense he was watching—only fair, considering how I’d been ogling him—but it made me feel awkward, like just inclining my head was a clumsy move.  
At least the slide wasn’t difficult.  
“Metaphase,” I said.  
“Do you mind if I look?” he asked as I started to remove the slide. His hand caught mine, to stop me, as he was speaking. His fingers were ice cold, like he’d been holding them in a snowdrift before class. But that wasn’t why I jerked my hand away so quickly. When he touched me, it stung my hand like a low-voltage electric shock.  
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, quickly pulling his hand back, though he continued to reach for the microscope. I watched him, a little dazed, as he examined the slide for another tiny fraction of a second.  
“Metaphase,” he agreed, then slid the microscope back to me.  
I tried to exchange slides, but they were too small or my fingers were too big, and I ended up dropping both. One fell on the table and the other over the edge, but Emmett caught it before it could hit the ground.  
“Ugh,” I exhaled, mortified. “Sorry.”  
“Well, the last is no mystery, either way,” he said. His tone was right on the edge of laughter. Butt of the joke again.  
Emmett calligraphed the words Metaphase and Telophase onto the last two lines of the worksheet.  
We were finished before anyone else was close. I could see McKayla and her partner comparing two slides again and again, and another pair had their book open under the table.  
Which left me with nothing to do but try not to look at him… unsuccessfully. I glanced up, and he was staring at me, that same glint of mischief in his eyes. Suddenly I identified that elusive difference in his face.  
“Did you get contacts?” I blurted out.  
He seemed puzzled by my apropos-of-nothing question. “No.”  
“Oh,” I mumbled. “I thought there was something different about your eyes.”  
He shrugged, and looked away.  
In fact, I knew there was something different. I had not forgotten one detail of that first time he’d glared at me like he wanted me dead. I could still see the flat black color of his eyes—so jarring against the background of his pale skin. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange gold, darker than butterscotch, but with the same warm tone. I didn’t understand how that was possible, unless he was lying for some reason about the contacts. Or maybe Forks was making me crazy in the literal sense of the word.  
I looked down. His hands were clenched into fists again.  
Mrs. Banner came to our table then, looking over our shoulders to glance at the completed lab, and then stared more intently to check the answers.  
“So, Emmett…,” Mrs. Banner began.  
“Beau identified half of the slides,” Emmett said before Mrs. Banner could finish.  
Mrs. Banner looked at me now; her expression was skeptical.  
“Have you done this lab before?” she asked.  
I shrugged. “Not with onion root.”  
“Whitefish blastula?”  
“Yeah.”  
Mrs. Banner nodded. “Were you in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?”  
“Yes.”  
“Well,” she said after a moment, “I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.” She mumbled something else I couldn’t hear as she walked away. After she left, I started doodling on my notebook again.  
“It’s too bad about the snow, isn’t it?” Emmett asked. I had the odd feeling that he was forcing himself to make small talk with me. It was like he had heard my conversation with Jeremy at lunch and was trying to prove me wrong. Which was impossible. I was turning paranoid.  
“Not really,” I answered honestly, instead of pretending to be normal like everyone else. I was still trying to shake the stupid feeling of suspicion, and I couldn’t concentrate on putting up a socially acceptable front.  
“You don’t like the cold.” It wasn’t a question.  
“Or the wet.”  
“Forks must be a hell of a place for you to live,” she mused.  
“You have no idea,” I muttered darkly.  
He looked riveted by my response, for some reason I couldn’t imagine. His face was such a distraction that I tried not to look at it any more than courtesy absolutely demanded.  
“Why did you come here, then?”  
No one had asked me that—not straight out like she did, demanding.  
“It’s… complicated.”  
“I think I can keep up,” he pressed.  
I paused for a long moment, and then made the mistake of meeting his gaze. His dark gold eyes confused me, and I answered without thinking.  
“My mother got remarried,” I said.  
“That doesn’t sound so complicated,” he disagreed, but his tone was suddenly softer. “When did that happen?”  
“Last September.” I couldn’t keep the sadness out of my voice.  
“And you don’t like him,” Emmett guessed, his voice still kind.  
“No, Phil is fine. A little young, maybe, but he’s a good guy.”  
“Why didn’t you stay with them?”  
I couldn’t understand his interest, but he continued to stare at me with penetrating eyes, as if my dull life’s story was somehow vitally important.  
“Phil travels most of the time. He plays ball for a living.” I half-smiled.  
“Have I heard of him?” he asked, smiling in response, just enough for a hint of the dimples to show.  
“Probably not. He doesn’t play well. Just minor league. He moves around a lot.”  
“And your mom sent you here so that she could go with him.” He said it as an assumption again, not a question.  
My hunched shoulders straightened automatically. “No, she didn’t. I sent myself.”  
His eyebrows pushed together. “I don’t understand,” he admitted.  
I sighed. Why was I explaining this to him? He stared at me, waiting.  
“She stayed with me at first, but she missed him. It made her unhappy… so I decided it was time to spend some quality time with my Dad.” My voice was glum by the time I finished.  
“But now you’re unhappy,” he pointed out.  
“And?” I challenged.  
“That just doesn’t seem fair.” He shrugged, but his eyes were still intense.  
I laughed once. “Haven’t you heard? Life isn’t fair.”  
“I’ve definitely heard that one before,” he agreed dryly.  
“So that’s it,” I insisted, wondering why he was still staring at me that way.  
His head tilted to the side, and his gold eyes seemed to laser right through the surface of my skin. “You put on a good show,” He said slowly. “But i’m betting that you’re suffering more than you let anyone see.”  
I shrugged. “I repeat… And?”  
“I don’t entirely understand you, that’s all.”  
I frowned. “Why would you want to?”  
“That’s a damn good question,” he murmured, so quietly that I wondered if he was talking to himself. However, after a few seconds of silence, I decided that was the only answer I was going to get.  
It was awkward, just looking at each other, but he didn’t look away. I wanted to keep staring at his face, but I was afraid he was wondering what was wrong with me for staring so much, so finally I turned toward the blackboard. He sighed.  
I glanced back, and he was still looking at me, but his expression was different… a little frustrated, or irritated.  
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Did I… Am I annoying you?”  
He shook his head and smiled with half that damn smirk so that one dimple popped out. “Nah, i’m annoyed at myself is all.”  
“Why?”  
He cocked his head to the side. “Usually I kinda like attention and being the class clown. I’m an outgoing guy but, you just make me kinda shy.”  
I flattened out my grin. “More… unexpected. I definitely pegged you for the class clown. I don't really see how I would make you shy.”  
He laughed, and the sound was like music, though I couldn’t think of the instrument to compare it to. His teeth were perfect—no surprise there—and blinding white.  
Mrs. Banner called the class to order then, and I was relieved to give her my attention. It was a little too intense, making small talk with Emmett. I felt dizzy in a strange way. Had I really just detailed my boring life to this bizarre, handsome man who might or might not hate me? He’d seemed almost too interested in what I had to say, but now I could see, from the corner of my eye, that he was leaning away from me again, his hands gripping the edge of the table with unmistakable tension.  
I tried to focus as Mrs. Banner went through the lab with transparencies on the overhead projector, but my thoughts were far away from the lecture.  
When the bell rang, Emmett rushed as swiftly and as gracefully from the room as he had last Monday. And, like last Monday, I stared after him with my jaw hanging open.  
McKayla got to my table almost as quickly.  
“That was awful,” she said. “They all looked exactly the same. You’re lucky you had Emmett for a partner.”  
“Yeah, he seemed to know his way around an onion root.”  
“He was friendly enough today,” McKayla commented as we shrugged into our raincoats. She didn’t sound happy about it.  
I tried to make my voice casual. “I wonder what was with him last Monday.”  
I couldn’t concentrate on McKayla’s chatter as we walked to Gym, and P.E. didn’t do much to hold my interest, either. McKayla was on my team today. She helpfully covered my position as well as her own, so I only had to pay attention when it was my turn to serve; my team knew to get out of the way when I was up. The rain was just a mist as I walked to the parking lot, but I was still pretty damp when I got in the truck. I turned the heat up as high as it could go, for once not caring about the mind-numbing roar of the engine.  
As I looked around me to make sure the way was clear, I noticed the still, white figure. Emmett Cullen was leaning against the front door of the Volvo, three cars down from me, and staring intently in my direction. The smile was gone, but at least so was the murder—for now, anyway. I looked away and threw the truck into reverse, almost hitting a rusty Toyota Corolla in my rush. Lucky for the Toyota, I stomped on the brake in time. It was just the sort of car that my truck would make scrap metal of. I took a deep breath, still looking out the other side of my car, and cautiously pulled out again. This time I made it. I stared straight ahead as I passed the Volvo, but I could see enough in my peripheral vision to know that he was laughing.


End file.
